Mar 30, 2016

Evangelicals changing on immigration

Americans are generally supportive of immigration. White evangelicals are the exception.

Evangelicals are the one group, according to a new Public Religion Research Institute survey, where a majority says accepting newcomers into the country "threatens traditional American customs and values."

This does not simply mean white evangelicals are opposed to immigration, though. While 53 percent say immigration is a cultural threat, 54 percent support reform, and like the idea of a path to citizenship.

There's also a big difference between younger evangelicals and older evangelicals. The numbers suggest a major generational shift: younger evangelicals' opinions on immigration are closer to black Protestants than to their elders. Fifty-five percent say immigrants are good for America and opposition drops by 20 points.

It would seem there's a significant change underway within white evangelicalism.

Daniel Silliman teaches American religion and culture at the University of Heidelberg. His research interests include American evangelicals and pentecostals, book history, atheism and secularity.

Silliman has a B.A. in philosophy from Hillsdale College and an M.A. in American Studies from the University of Tübingen. He is currently working on his doctoral dissertation at Heidelberg on the representations of belief in contemporary evangelical fiction.

He previously worked as a reporter for a metro Atlanta newspaper, where he wrote about crime.

Francis Schaeffer's 1982 message to the Presbyterians at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was pretty simple: the philosophy of modern society is humanism, and humanism means death.